Runaways
by Dr Namgge
Summary: Designated for the scrapheap, Decoe and Bocoe decide to defy programming and escape the empire. They will not succeed alone though, but can a misfit gang of yesterdays failures really lead to there success?
1. Chapter 1

"After a recent … setback," the voice of an angry Doctor Robotnik rang out, not wanting to admit a loss, "All old robots built before the beginning of this year are to be turned into scrap metal without exception. All parts will be salvaged, and re-designed into more efficient, more powerful robots in the glory of the empire."

Today, it had to be said, was not a good day to be yesterdays model. It was an even worse day to reveal your hidden sentiency. Ever since a near fatal error with the Metal Sonic resulted in the entire destruction of the Egg fleet, a large batch of airships designed like fish, something which had cost Robotnik greatly, sentiency was strictly forbidden in robot design. Of course some robots were sentient, and with sentiency come a desire to survive at all costs. Hence the previous order made two robots very nervous.

There names were Decoe and Bocoe, two robots designed to look vaguely human. There primary function was that of pilots for large airship. Robotnik had always been wary of completely automatic large airships to pilot themselves; having pilots who weren't directly connected to such a vessel meant that it would be possible to land the craft if the electronics within it began to falter. It was an important safety feature for any large vehicle to be landed in the event of any destruction, which was more than likely with Sonic involved.

Today, however, was the day the pair of robots finally decided to fully betray there orders. Filled with dread at the idea of there own destruction, the pair had deliberately left the compounds of Robotnik's base. However neither of them had actually developed a plan, and being chased by three gun wielding large blue robots didn't really give there electronic components the chance to process one. Fleeing for their artificial intelligence, the pair dived into the woods.

Unfortunately, gold and silver aren't the most practical of colour schemes when it comes to hiding, and despite the density of the woods, their pursuers kept pace very easily the fact that neither robot was capable of running very fast did not help.

"Duck!" came a shrill cry from above. Reflexively the gold and silver robots did. There three pursuers however lacked such intelligence, and were immediately crushed by a large boulder.

"How on Earth did you get a large boulder into such a narrow tree?" the gold robot asked.

A silver and blue robot, at least a foot taller than the silver Bocoe, but about half a foot shorter than Decoe stood in front of the pair. He had chicken like features, and looked slightly rusty. "That's nothing," he replied, "The hard part is making sure you don't get crushed yourself when you drop the boulder. Speaking of which," the robot continued, "you alright Grounder?"

A muffled cry of "no" came from underneath the boulder. Despite this, a head eventually poked out from underneath the large rock. "Does anyone want to remove this rock?"

"Would you two care to help?" the chicken like robot asked.

The gold and silver robots nodded, knowing they owed there freedom, at least for now, to this pair of robots. Together the three of them moved the boulder, revealing a pile of crushed parts, mostly blue from the pursuers, but there was quite a bit of the green Grounder amidst the rubble. "We'll take it all," the chicken bot said.

"Why?" asked Bocoe, "What do you need with the parts of the robots you were trying to destroy?"

"Ba-ha ha-ha!" the chicken robot laughed, "They've not been free long have they?"

"Sure haven't Scratch," Grounders severed head replied, referring to his chicken friend.

"I dunno what you're used to," Scratch continued, replying to the silver robots question, "But when you're not part of the empire repairs ain't free. There's no National Repair Service when you're defying Robotnik."

"But master Eggman respects all his creations." Decoe replied.

"Respects?" Grounder asked rhetorically, "That's your programming talking. Think he's gonna rush out to repair me now?"

"Tell me then," Scratch continued, "If this Eggman fella respects his 'bots, then why were ya fleeing?"

Neither Decoe nor Bocoe answered. The silence went on for several seconds before Scratch replied with a comment of "thought so." The three vaguely human robots continued walking, all carrying parts of the four robots that had been dismembered by the boulder.

"My nose is itchy," Grounder eventually said, breaking the silence.

"You don't have a nose," Bocoe replied in his slightly electronic sounding synthesised voice.

"Then my drill is itching me," Grounder replied, "Would you scratch it?"

Bocoe relented, scratching his rounded metal fingers over the drill on Grounders face. "Where are we going anyway?" he hesitantly asked.

"We have a little hideaway for robots on the run. There's a few of us there, you're welcome to join if you wish." Scratch answered, "So long as you can pass an initiation test first."

"What happens if we don't?" Decoe asked nervously.

"Ba-ha ha-ha, tell them Grounder." Scratch replied.

"But I don't know," Grounder replied, "Nobodies ever failed to pass it."

"Shush," Scratch said, trying to silence his dismembered green partner, "They're not s'posed to know that," he said quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

The robots spent the best part of an hour trekking through the woods, At no point in that time had they seen anything bar trees. There were no robots, no people, no animals, either feral, or sentient. All either Decoe or Bocoe could process was trees. During this time the four of them had been discussing everything from the rise in the cost of aluminium, to the success of Robotnik's latest scheme, to the fact that even in there consciousness, none of them could shift a burning hatred of, and desire to kill, a three foot tall blue hedgehog.

"Alright, we're here," Scratch announced suddenly, dropping all robot parts he was carrying. The chicken like robot tapped against a tree rhythmically with the back of his wing like arm. A slot appeared, and Decoe could just make out a pair of eyes.

"Who's there?" a voice rang out consciously.

"It's me you lugnut," Scratch replied, "Now let us back in."

"Sur-" the voice started before stopping, "Hey, wait a minute, there's three of you out there. How do I know this isn't a trick?"

"Coconuts, you moron, it's me, and these two are two new additions. Now will you let us in."

"Oh alright," the robot replied, "But they better tidy up after themselves, I hate janitorial work more than I hate guard duty, and I _hate_ guard duty."

With that there was a quiet vibrating noise, and the chunk of ground lifted upwards, revealing a metal staircase. Scratch picked up the majority of the robot parts, and walked quickly down the stairs. Tapping numbers on a keypad, the robot then waited several seconds, before the door opened.

The three of them walked in, Scratch completely relaxed by his surroundings, Decoe and Bocoe not entirely sure what to make of it. It looked kind of like something from Eggman's empire, all metal, with lots of machinery, and everything that's nailed down arranged efficiently, but everything that wasn't nailed down was in disorganised chaos, and the place was clearly dilapidated.

"Welcome to your new home," a one armed robot said dryly from the corner. It was a Swat-bot. Black body, domed black head, generally featureless. Bocoe had once seen the schematics for one while going through a routine sweep of his former masters archives.

"Slow down swatty," Scratch said, "They're yet to get initiated yet."

Decoe looked around the room, almost convinced he'd seen the swat bot smirk. His sensors ran over several different types of parts from various robots, almost all of them obsolete. There were several robots in the room, the biggest being the Swat-bot, the smallest being a Whisp. Nearly all of them had some kind of damage to them, with either obvious patchwork jobs to hide the damage as best as possible, or alternatives made, or perhaps found, to suit them.

The room was also covered in machine parts. Wires and joints lay everywhere, with arms and torso's laying partially worked on, discarded on workbenches, with tools laying not too far from them. The walls had been patched up with parts of old machinery that obviously was too big to be used for anything but, and the bases lone light supply came from what was once a Flasher badnik.

"Look," Grounder said, "I know this isn't exactly what you two are used to, but we make do with what we have here. We got buckets of oil for when you're feeling stiff, tools for when you need a fix, dry sponges for when you need a clean, and we've even got somewhere for you to rest your head during shutdown."

"Yeah," Bocoe said, trying to adjust to what was in front of him, "I'm just surprised you've got all this.

"It wasn't easy y'know. Cost us many an arm and a leg," the Swat-bot in the corner replied, realising full well the irony of his statement, "We might not have the resources that the empire does, but we get what we can from them, and use that to help us. Everything from engine upgrades, to ammunitions we scour from the empire. Rare stuff too, discarded prototypes, valuable base metals, power supply converters. We even got us a Metallix."

"A what?" Decoe asked curiously. In all his years working even directly within proximity to his former master Eggman, Decoe had never heard of a Metallix.

"He means a Metal Sonic," Coconuts said, broom in hand, sweeping up spare bolts and wires from the floor. "We picked one of them up, and are gonna…"

Coconuts explanation was cut off, the mouth piece of the robot covered by a large blue feathered looking arm. Scratch looked angrily to Coconuts and whispered, "Ixnay the Etallixmay alktay."

"You have a Metal Sonic?" Decoe asked surprised by this statement.

"There is only one Metal Sonic," Bocoe replied, unintentionally quoting a line of his programming.

"That's what you think," the Swat-bot continued.

"Swatty, I'm warning you, be quiet!" Scratch yelled, "I don't know if we can trust these two yet."

"Then lets initiate them," Coconuts said eagerly, having freed himself from Scratch's arms just a moment earlier, "Lets see if they are indeed sentient, and want to help."

"And if we don't?" Bocoe asked nervously.

"That really does depend," the Whisp replied, "if you're lucky we'll simple take out your processors, and short them out with ten thousand volts, if you're unlucky we'll erase your sentiency, then let you be found by Robotnik. You must know what he does to traitors, I doubt I need to tell you which is worse."

"He's bluffing," Bocoe whispered to Decoe.

"What makes you say that?" Decoe quietly asked.

"They need the parts," Bocoe replied.

"That doesn't really make me feel any better," Decoe muttered.

"Well, what's it gonna be then?" Scratch said, "you can either take the initiation, or you can get out of here. You're choice." the robot asked, pretty confident in what reply he'd get.

"I don't think we've got much choice," Decoe replied.

"So we'll go?" Bocoe asked, unsure of what Decoe was thinking.

"You want to leave?" Decoe replied.

"I meant to go get initiated," Bocoe said, shooting the gold robot a look of disdain.

"Fair enough," Scratch said, "Initiation'll be tonight. 'Til then I suggest you make yourself useful, or get out for now."


End file.
